[Announce] New variant: Tactical Angband

[Sauken]

As others have echoed, this seems just like what Angband has needed for a while. Can't wait to try it out! Will be back with feedback.

[Kodiologist]

I just had a frustrating and cryptic death on c7c436539201f8eac652a489f4607a12804b160f (from January 8th) around dungeon level 34 or so, and I wonder if it's a bug. I had see invisible and yet I was fighting something I couldn't see ("You miss something" etc.). Then I got "You have been knocked out." despite having no stun previously, which seems like a huge amount of stun in one hit. I lost a lot of turns to being unconscious and was killed. Here's a character dump, since the oook.cz ladder can't handle it.

Aside from that weirdness, I've been enjoying the variant. Thanks for doing this.

[Nick]

I just had a frustrating and cryptic death on c7c436539201f8eac652a489f4607a12804b160f (from January 8th) around dungeon level 34 or so, and I wonder if it's a bug. I had see invisible and yet I was fighting something I couldn't see ("You miss something" etc.). Then I got "You have been knocked out." despite having no stun previously, which seems like a huge amount of stun in one hit. I lost a lot of turns to being unconscious and was killed. Here's a character dump, since the oook.cz ladder can't handle it.

From the dump it looks like you were killed by a trapper, and that you didn't have see invisible (at time of death, at least). Trappers have two 15d1 blows, which have a 1 in 7 chance of stunning you for 20-40 if they hit (knocked out is 100).

[Kodiologist]

you didn't have see invisible (at time of death, at least)

Ah dang, you're right. It looks like I'd confused myself by swapping out multiple pieces of equipment that provided see invisible around the same time.

Evidently I didn't appreciate how dangerous trappers can be, since I've blown past them without issue previous. Thanks. It's a bit of a shame that free action doesn't protect against stunning.

[tom]

Profuse apologies for the unfair death, Kodiologist. It was entirely my fault. Trappers can be nasty, but the way I reduced monster blows to 1 per round caused knock-out monsters to be ultra-deadly. I've fixed it in a 0.6.1 release:

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.6.1

But something about how I pushed the tag prevented binaries from being built... so if you need a binary you could pick up the latest master build:

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.6-3-gf6a4c32d0

This build contains an additional change planned for 0.7: blindness and confusion are non-stacking and with duration measured in player turns (like 0.6 did for paralysis). Easy cures for blindness and confusion are removed. Duration of the effects are reduced (mostly a fixed 3d2 player turns). The intention is to make blindness & confusion more than just "next turn is a forced potion quaffing". The duration might need tweaking for balance.

[Kodiologist]

the way I reduced monster blows to 1 per round caused knock-out monsters to be ultra-deadly

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks for tending to it.

This build contains an additional change planned for 0.7: blindness and confusion are non-stacking and with duration measured in player turns (like 0.6 did for paralysis). Easy cures for blindness and confusion are removed. Duration of the effects are reduced (mostly a fixed 3d2 player turns). The intention is to make blindness & confusion more than just "next turn is a forced potion quaffing". The duration might need tweaking for balance.

I like the sound of that, although some other change might be needed to prevent the player from getting in a blindness or confusion loop from being around monsters that can inflict it repeatedly. Umber hulks can be nasty in vanilla even if you have a big stack of potions of cure light wounds. A more ambitious change in this direction could be greatly reducing both the availability and the necessity of most resistances. Then instead of late-game equipment choice being a matter of "How do I cover all the low resists and most of the high resists?", it would be "Which three or four resists do I want the most?".

[tom]

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks for tending to it.


I like the sound of that, although some other change might be needed to prevent the player from getting in a blindness or confusion loop from being around monsters that can inflict it repeatedly. Umber hulks can be nasty in vanilla even if you have a big stack of potions of cure light wounds. A more ambitious change in this direction could be greatly reducing both the availability and the necessity of most resistances. Then instead of late-game equipment choice being a matter of "How do I cover all the low resists and most of the high resists?", it would be "Which three or four resists do I want the most?".

Yeah I've enjoyed the nasty blindness & confusion during playtesting. I hadn't considered the blind & confused loop. So far other things are still killing me a lot more than incurable status effects. I've been trying to win with a warrior, and man has it been tough. Furthest I got was a gnome warrior killed by osse. In TA you often end up fighting in unideal situtations, that teleport-other would prevent in V. I was ambushed by osse and makar at the same time. Dangerous situations often develop quite slowly, compared to V. This is particularly the case in late game TA. I like it

The halved breath/spell damage does make resists feel less "i must have this" than in V. Though I wonder if it (+ the summoning nerf) has left rangers a bit overpowered in particular.

How does the new collection of escape tools play for you? Locking, the wind items, swap places, etc? Perhaps a few more ideas here would be nice. No classes have received class-specific escape spells, so the tools are just generically TA. It might be flavourful to cook up some class-specific ones.

much stuff to ponder. and also doing it without making the game feel like a totally different game than V. is that possible?

[Kodiologist]

The halved breath/spell damage does make resists feel less "i must have this" than in V.

That's true. My last character had a difficult relatively early fight with a basilisk that I ultimately won, but probably would've been suicide in vanilla without poison resistance.

How does the new collection of escape tools play for you? Locking, the wind items, swap places, etc?

They look cool, but I've only been making room for potions of running so far. I'm not great at Angband (I've never won on any variant; I have much more of a history with NetHack and Cataclysm DDA) and I struggle to make optimal use of the limited number of inventory slots. I've tended to carry a ring of teleportation as a swap, for both the speed and the teleportation, and recall has proved useful for escape so long as I make sure to trigger it early enough.

[wobbly]

Have you considered adding any movement based combat ala Sil?

Sil has options to flank - move adjacent and strike, ZOC - like flanking with the target moving, controlled retreat and set polearms

Also might be a nice variant to use some basic terrain

[klassik]

i just thought of this

it came to mind that long range attacks might benefit from the passable rubble by using it as cover. ball spell damage reduction. might be ranger specific, idk. may need to actively use a command to initiate the cover which in turn would need to use same command to get out of cover. this could also slow down the game as a whole. i think it should be tested. just a thought.

[tom]

Yeah I have considered some terrain changes. Sil-style chasms (giving feather falling some utility ), and other terrains that give particular sorts of cover.

Some weapon type flavouring is another thing I'd like to do, though I'm a bit clueless about medieval weapons. The idea of a whip vs a dagger being more than 3 lb vs 1.2lb, 1d3 vs 1d4. Whip could have a range 2 strike, like some orcs have in recent vanilla versions. Daggers could get special criticals against sleeping foe. Lances and other huuuuge polearmy could give monsters a poke if they approach you. Some variants have had axes attack multiple targets when you are surrounded? or is that dcss... Dunno how realistic that is, but realism isn't an important guide for fantasy roguelikes, I'd say.

Many things to ponder. Currently I'm trying to win with a Druid. Next, Priests need some love (as they are my least favourite class).

The item drop balance feels quite good now, and incurable blindness/confusion has not proven to be impossibly deadly, and has produced some fun & nasty situations.

[tom]

Here's Tactical Angband 0.7

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.7

Changes in this version:
* Fixed a bug where monsters capable of knocking out the player (mystics and trappers) could do so in a single turn.
* Blindness and confusion are now non-stacking, shorter duration, measured in player turns, and mostly incurable.
* Ringwraiths can now summon each other again. This is a special exemption from the general summoning nerf, which restricts summons to two-thirds the level of the summoner.
* Fixed a bug preventing individual monster friends from appearing. This fixes issues like Bill, Tom and Bert not appearing together.
* Gravity now teleports monsters 5 tiles, not 10 (to match shortening of distances generally).
* Tweak to detection rod rarity.

[tom]

So a quick update. I'm working on a redesign of stealth. The issue I've found in playtesting TA (and V) is that stealth is a license to grind through monsters one by one, in a tactically uninteresting way. With strong escapes having been removed in tactical angband, stealth is even more desirable than in V, so the problem is more apparent.

So I'm playtesting some changes where melee, archery and most damaging spells are noisy, and can wake monsters. This is a big change to how a stealthy character has to be played, and needed counter-balancing changes. Some of those changes I'm toying with are: big +hit bonus when attacking sleeping monsters, dagger & main gauche are silent and +2 might when attacking sleeping monsters, ring of mouse reworked to be less anti-melee (-d4 STR, +d4 INFRA, +d4 STEALTH), rogue 'hit and run' power triggered by melee as well as stealing, and giving temporary +moves, staff of sleep monsters made more useful.

Probably this won't become 0.8 for a couple of weeks, as it's quite a big change to game balance.

[Pete Mack]

You might look into how Sil does stealth. There is aware vs unaware vs awake and asleep. So stealth does not work only like a countdown clock.

[tom]

You might look into how Sil does stealth. There is aware vs unaware vs awake and asleep. So stealth does not work only like a countdown clock.

Do the unaware monsters walk around a fixed circuit, or roam around in some other way?

I'd like to add something like this. It might be interesting as a vanilla angband feature, too.